Hear Walter Benjamin's Radio Broadcasts for Children

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Walter Benjamin prepared and delivered some 30 broadcasts for German Radio between 1929-1932 specifically for children, maybe 7-14 or so, each consisting of a 20 minute talk or monologue.

A main emphasis was on introducing the youth to various, some of them classical, natural catastrophes, for instance the Lisbon earthquake of the 1750's that so shook the optimism of Voltaire and the century, a flood of the Mississippi of 1927, the Pompeii disaster as came through the famous letter of Pliny the Younger; another subject was various episodes of lawlessness fraud and deceit, much of it recent, for instance bootlegger's boats that were bringing rum or whatever to America through the prohibition blockade. "Aufklärung für Kinder" ("Enlightenment for Children") was the name of the series. This release collects some of these broadcasts, read in german language by Harald Wiesner.

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